In the early 1900s, Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born starving artist living in Vienna trying to sell scenes he had copied and painted from postcards. He had been rejected twice by Vienna’s Academy of Fine Arts and his future seemed vague. Following his service in World War I, however, and his fateful alliance with the National Socialist German Workers Party, Hitler rechanneled his artistic hopes into a revised agenda: the creation of a new world order.
Degenerate Art
Hitler would use his power to condemn art that he despised and to promote, collect or plunder the works that he loved. On the blacklist were the Impressionists, Post-Impressionists, Expressionists, Dadaists, Cubists, Surrealists and essentially any form of art that was too unusual, thought-provoking or questioning of authority. Artists linked to Jewish gallery owners or collectors were also verboten, even though Hitler himself had dealt amicably with Jews in his own art-producing days.
The forbidden art was referred to as “degenerate”—or Entartete Kunst. Among the many creators cited as worthy of censure were Pablo Picasso, Vincent van Gogh, Marc Chagall, Henri Matisse, Piet Mondrian, Edvard Munch and Emil Nolde. Der Blaue Reiter member Franz Marc was also included, even though Marc had died fighting for Germany in World War I.
The Führermuseum
On the opposite side of the Hitler art spectrum were splendid Old Masters such as Rembrandt and Vermeer, Vermeer’s 1668 The Astronomer having been “acquired” by the Nazis in 1940, much to Hitler’s delight. Hitler’s ultimate goal was to create a Führermuseum of desired art in Linz, city of his Austrian boyhood, and to fill it with treasures like The Astronomer. In terms of the preferred German style, Hitler generally extolled the sentimental and romantic, or any painting that celebrated the homeland’s natural beauty, young fertile women, hardworking peasants, and of course the purported superiority of the Aryan race.
Eduard von Grützner
Hitler was reported to very much appreciate the works of Eduard von Grützner (1846-1925), and to even put Grützner on the level of a German Rembrandt. Grützner was a hard-working artist who lived and taught in Munich, and who often painted round, rosy-cheeked, somewhat inebriated monks. Keeping within the theme of portly and boozy, Grützner painted his versions of Shakespeare’s memorable character Falstaff as well.
Arnold Böcklin
Swiss-born Symbolist Arnold Böcklin (1827-1901) was among Hitler’s favorites, with Hitler owning several Böcklin works. Böcklin’s intense style—as particularly seen in his Isle of the Dead series—offered a Romantic otherworld that was sometimes brooding and macabre, while at others fleshly and exalted. Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Isle of the Dead set Böcklin’s vision to music, while Böcklin evidently had an ironic influence on the art of Max Ernst and Edvard Munch, both on Hitler’s degenerate roster.
Franz von Stuck
Another Symbolist painter and sculptor favored by Hitler was Franz von Stuck (1863-1928). Originally from Bavaria, Stuck set up his studio and taught in Munich like Grützner, and would later be regarded by Hitler as one of the Munich greats. Furthermore, the strong, supple nudes in many of Stuck’s works seem mirrored in the supremely statuesque ideals of Nazi-sponsored art. Stuck’s ironic influence was on students Paul Klee and Wassily Kandinsky, also listed among Hitler’s immoralists.
Adolf Ziegler
In July of 1937, Hitler presented two exhibits to his public: Degenerate Art and Great German Art. The Degenerate exhibit was to mock and expose the subversive and unhealthy nature of those involved, while the “Great” exhibit was to promote the ideal Nazi aesthetic.
Adolf Ziegler (1892-1959) gradually moved through the ranks to become a top Reich art official. Ziegler’s mission was to rid Germany of the degenerate artistic influences while promoting the virtues of the Nazi regime. Ziegler’s portrait of Terpsichore—or the muse of dance—was included in the Great German Art showing. A 1939 piece in Time Magazine objected to any claim to greatness, complaining that “[a]lmost anywhere else in the world Terpsichore would be considered the kind of thing to put on a beer ad calendar. Not so in the new Germany.”
Ziegler ultimately found himself in trouble within his own inner circle. He had made some public comments which did not totally support Hitler, and he was therefore arrested and sent to the Dachau concentration camp as punishment for a short while.
The Triumph of Emil Nolde
Following World War II and the collapse of the Third Reich, Ziegler found it difficult to regain his artistic footing. Meanwhile, German painter Emil Nolde—who had been forbidden to create yet who had still produced “secret works”—lived to see his reputation restored. Nolde was awarded the prestigious German Order of Merit before his death in 1956 and was clearly no longer considered to be a degenerate, but rather an artistic survivor of the Nazi reign of terror.
Sources
- German History in Documents and Images: First “Great German Art Exhibition”
- The Lost Museum – Hector Feliciano (Basic Books, 1998)
